I think we all understand that the offensive line play is on the short list of biggest problems for the team. Some have referred to it as being among the worst in the country. I thought I'd try to try to get a sense of what level of OL play we're seeing. It's tough to objectively or rigorously compare OL play across the years and stats only get you so far as they reflect supporting cast, opposition, and other vagaries. PFF grades are subject to some of the same variables and are also imperfect but at least they try to specifically evaluate attributes like pass blocking and run blocking. For what it's worth, the PFF grades for pass blocking and run blocking ranked by where the addition of those two grades ranked among power conference teams each year (I did a lot of back of the envelope math here and am hoping I didn't make egregious errors):
5) 2015: 82.2 in pass blocking (11th), 92.7 in run blocking (3rd)
8) 2014: 93.6 in pass blocking (2nd), 82.2 in run blocking (26th)
14) 2017: 72.9 in pass blocking (42nd), 86.1 in run blocking (1st)
19) 2020: 63.7 in pass blocking (34th), 74.9 in run blocking (18th)
21) 2016: 71.1 in pass blocking (44th), 87.5 in run blocking (5th)
27) 2018: 81.3 in pass blocking (14th), 62.6 in run blocking (37th)
44) 2019: 63.4 in pass blocking (43rd), 63.3 in run blocking (37th)
45) 2022: 50.4 in pass blocking (57th), 69.0 in run blocking (19th)
50) 2021: 55.9 in pass blocking (53rd), 65.8 in run blocking (45th)
64) 2024: 59.1 in pass blocking (62nd), 52.1 in run blocking (67th)
66) 2023: 50.1 in pass blocking (64th), 52.3 in run blocking (62nd)
My addition skills and eyeball-bleeding scanning of PFF grade tables may have some errors here or there, but I think the picture is clear that the two offensive lines under this current staff are the worst we've had in the PFF era, and common sense/eye test validates that these are our worst lines since the mid-2000s (and many know I would never negatively compare a line to those lines absent a lot of evidence.....I don't know that what we are seeing now is THAT bad).
That's not an earth-shattering revelation, I don't think. But perhaps it's bracing/illuminating to see if put this way: last year we were 66th of 68 in blocking and this year we are currently 64th of 69.
I do not consider this progress. We returned our top seven OL from last year. The historically low baseline coupled with the continuity of having all those guys back with an extra year working under the same coaches and the same strength and conditioning staff should have led to massive improvement. Instead.....we've gone from 66th to 64th in Power Four blocking. As one measure of what all our returning offensive production was supposed to mean for 2024, consider that the SP+ preseason model predicted we would have the #66 offense and today - following a great win yesterday - the model pegs us based on actual real-world results as having the #88 offense.
I don't think I am saying anything that should surprise anybody who has watched the team this year but, again, perhaps it's bracing and/or illuminating to see some hard evidence that the OL has not improved despite returning everybody plus some depth plus cycling in some new recruits plus getting a full extra year of coaching and strength continuity.
We'll see where this stands in a few weeks and can make more sweeping judgments then, but it strikes me as likely to be essentially mandatory that we change the coaching approach at OL and bring in transfers, or else it will be only fair to doubt this coaching staff's seriousness, accountability, and grip on reality. We cannot be hearing that the "young" OL is "improving" when these are the kind of results we are seeing this year.
P.S. I suppose the one rejoinder I could see somebody inclined against accountability to make is to disparage PFF and say it doesn't conform with our own evaluations of the line's progress. Pardon me if I'd be skeptical of that given the results on the field, the obvious verdict of the eye test, the historic correlation between PFF and other measures/eye test/efficacy/etc., our offensive staff's dearth of experience.....
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